Tennessee Williams One Acts

This Dream Engine/Indefinite Theatre/Gorilla Tango Theatre production dusts off four playlets by Tennessee Williams, all written before The Glass Menagerie launched his legend. Interesting primarily because of who wrote them, the pieces showcase immature versions of Williams's signature characters: monstrously loquacious moms, disaffected boy-men, doomed, defiant heroines. But as demonstrated by the plays' various walkouts, part of a familial line running straight back to Ibsen's A Doll's House, the adolescent dramatics of the patron saint of runaways were fully formed even then. As stand-alone theater, however, these works are just too pat to be credible. Director John Zajac's ensemble of journeymen and fresh faces generally does good work, but only Rebecca Prescott really cracks Williams's source code. --Brian Nemtusak a Through 2/10: Fri-Sat 8 PM, Gorilla Tango Theatre, 1919 N. Milwaukee, 773-598-4549, $12.